again?” He stood openmouthed, as if he could drink in sound orally, touched his face and stared in surprise at his crimson—smeared hand.
“Your ears are only stunned, Kou,” said Vorkosigan. His voice was calm, but much too loud. “They’ll be back to normal by tomorrow morning.” Only Cordelia realized the raised tone wasn’t for Koudelka’s benefit—Vorkosigan couldn’t hear himself, either. His eyes shifted too quickly, the only hint that he was trying to read lips.
Simon Illyan and a physician arrived at almost the same moment. Vorkosigan and Koudelka were taken to a quiet back parlor, shedding all the—to Cordelia’s mind—rather useless guards. Cordelia and Droushnakovi followed. The physician began an immediate examination, starting, at Vorkosigan’s command, with the gory Koudelka.
“One shot?” asked Illyan.
“Only one,” confirmed Vorkosigan, watching his face. “If they’d lingered for a second try, they could have bracketed me.”
“If he’d lingered, we could have bracketed him. A forensic team’s on the firing site now. The assassin’s long gone, of course. A clever spot, he had a dozen escape routes.”
“We vary our route daily,” Lieutenant Koudelka, following this with difficulty, said around the cloth he pressed to his face. “How did he know where to set up his ambush?”
“Inside information?” Illyan shrugged, his teeth clenching at the thought.
“Not necessarily,” said Vorkosigan. “There are only so many routes, this close to home. He could have been set up waiting for days.”
“Precisely at the limit of our close-search perimeter?” said Illyan. “I don’t like it.”
“It bothers me more that he missed,” said Vorkosigan. “Why? Could it have been some sort of warning shot? An attempt, not on my life, but on my balance of mind?”
“It was old ordnance,” said Illyan. “There could have been something wrong with its tracker—nobody detected a laser rangefinder pulse.” He paused, taking in Cordelia’s white face. “I’m sure it was a lone lunatic, Milady. At least, it was certainly only one man.”
“How does a lone maniac get hold of military-grade weaponry?” she inquired tartly.
Illyan looked uncomfortable. “We will be investigating that. It was definitely old issue.”
“Don’t you destroy obsolete stockpiles?”
“There’s so much of it. …”
Cordelia glared at this wit-scattered utterance. “He only needed one shot. If he’d managed a direct hit on that sealed car, Aral’d have been emulsified. Your forensic team would be trying right now to sort out which molecules were his and which were Kou’s.”
Droushnakovi turned faintly green; Vorkosigan’s saturnine look was now firmly back in place.
“You want me to give you a precise resonance reflection amplitude calculation for that sealed passenger cabin, Simon?” Cordelia went on hotly. “Whoever chose that weapon was a competent military tech—if, fortunately, a poorish shot.” She bit back further words, recognizing, even if no one else did, the suppressed hysteria driving the speed of her speech.
“My apologies. Captain Naismith.” Illyan’s tone grew more clipped. “You are quite correct.” His nod was a shade more respectful.
Aral tracked this interplay, his face lightening, for the first time, with some hidden amusement.
Illyan took himself off, conspiracy theories no doubt dancing in his head. The doctor confirmed Aral’s combat-experienced diagnosis of aural stun, issued powerful anti-headache pills—Aral hung on to his firmly—and made an appointment to re-check both men in the morning.
When Illyan stopped back by Vorkosigan House in the late evening to confer with his guard commander, it was all Cordelia could do not to grab him by the jacket and pin him to the nearest wall to shake out his information. She confined herself to simply asking, “Who tried to kill Aral? Who wants to kill Aral? Whatever benefit do they imagine they’ll gain?”
Illyan sighed. “Do you want the short list, or the long one, Milady?”
“How long is the short list?” she asked in morbid fascination.
“Too long. But I can name you the top layer, if you like.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “The Cetagandans, always. They had counted on political chaos here, following Ezar’s death. They’re not above prodding it along. An assassination is cheap interference, compared to an invasion fleet. The Komarrans, for old revenge or new revolt. Some there still call the Admiral the Butcher of Komarr—”
Cordelia, knowing the whole story behind that loathed sobriquet, winced.
“The anti-Vor, because my lord Regent is too conservative for their tastes. The military right, who fear he is too progressive for theirs. Leftover members of Prince Serg and Vorrutyer’s old war party. Former operatives of the now-suppressed Ministry of Political Education, though I doubt one of them would have missed. Negri’s department used to train them. Some disgruntled Vor who thinks he came out short in the recent power-shift. Any lunatic with access to weapons and a desire for instant fame as a big-game hunter—shall I go on?”
“Please don’t. But what about today? If motive yields too broad a field of suspects, what about method and opportunity?”
“We have a little to work with there, though too much of it is negative. As I noted, it was a very clean attempt. Whoever set it up had to have access to certain kinds of knowledge. We’ll work those angles first.”
It was the anonymity of the assassination attempt that bothered her most, Cordelia decided. When the killer could be anyone, the impulse to suspect everyone became overwhelming. Paranoia was a contagious disease here, it seemed; Barrayarans gave it to each other. Well, Negri and Illyan’s combined forces must winkle out some concrete facts soon. She packed all her fears down hard into a little tiny compartment in the pit of her stomach, and locked them there. Next to her child.
Vorkosigan held her tight that night, curled into the curve of his stocky body, though he made no sexual advances. He just held her. He didn’t fall asleep for hours, despite the painkillers that glazed his eyes. She didn’t fall asleep till he did. His snores lulled her at last. There wasn’t that much to say. They missed; we go on. Till the next try.
Chapter Five
The Emperors Birthday was a traditional Barrayaran holiday, celebrated with feasting, dancing, drinking, veterans’ parades, and an incredible amount of apparently totally unregulated fireworks. It would make a great day for a surprise attack on the capital, Cordelia decided; an artillery barrage could be well under way before anybody noticed it in the general din. The uproar began at dawn.
The duty guards, who had a natural tendency to jump at sudden noises anyway, were twitchy and miserable, except for a couple more youthful types who attempted to celebrate with a few crackers let off inside the walls. They were taken aside by the guard commander, and emerged much later, pale and shrunken, to slink off. Cordelia later saw them hauling rubbish under the command of a sardonic housemaid, while a scullery girl and the second cook galloped happily out of the house for a surprise day off. The Emperor’s Birthday was a moveable feast. The Barrayarans’ enthusiasm for the holiday seemed undaunted by the fact that, due to Ezar’s death and Gregor’s ascension, this was the second time they would celebrate it this year.
Cordelia passed up an invitation to attend a major military review that gobbled Aral’s morning in favor of staying fresh for the event of the evening—the event of the year, she was given to understand—personal attendence upon the Emperor’s birthday dinner at the Imperial Residence. She looked forward to seeing Kareen and Gregor again, however briefly. At least she was certain that her clothing was all right. Lady Vorpatril, who had both excellent taste and an advance line on Barrayaran-style maternity wear, had taken pity on Cordelia’s cultural bafflement and offered herself as an expert native guide.
As a result, Cordelia confidently wore an impeccably cut forest green silk dress that swirled from shoulder to floor, with an open overvest of thick ivory velvet. Live flowers in matching colors were arranged in her copper hair by the live human hairdresser Alys also sent on. Like their public events, the Barrayarans made of their clothes a sort of folk-art, as elaborate as Betan body paint. Cordelia couldn’t be sure from Aral—his face always lit when he saw her—but judging from the delighted “Oohs” of Count Piotr’s female staff, Cordelia’s sartorial art team had outdone themselves.
